Today there was a fight, yesterday a inmate stabbed another in the face, the day prior there was a fight. How do I feel? Scared as fuck!

HOSTILE & SEXUALLY CHARGED ENVIRONMENT

I want to share some thoughts with you just for a moment. The reality is that the hostile and sexually charged environment that exist within the male prisons is harmful to me and my transition, no where within my file is there a charge for committing violence or being violent towards others, hence, when I see another inmate stabbing someone or when I see another inmate assaulting someone, it scares me and often awakens trauma that I have within me.

ENVIRONMENT THAT CAUSES TRAUMA

These incidents remind me of how my father would beat me for being gay, they remind me of the violence that I have witnessed when my mother was murdered. These incidents only reaffirm my position that, its not safe to have a transgender female housed within a male facility, especially the adult prison where truthfully, there is lack of staffing and a huge risk of sexual assault.

BEING IGNORED BY EXECUTIVE STAFF

I believe that executive staff within central offices have ignored or refused to acknowledge the safety implications that exist with housing me, a female in a male prison. For example, the other day when another inmate was stabbed in the fact, I was ordered to submit to a strip search during the strip search the officer threw my clothing on the floor and told me to pick up as if I was not human and worthy of dignity to have my clothes handed back to me. The laughing and humiliation from the officers is normalized.

SPECIALIZED TRAINING FOR OFFICERS AVAILABLE ONLY AT EMCFW.

While there is training that exist to ensure that officers are more aware and understanding of the trauma that inmates go through. Sadly, this training only exist at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for women, a prison where I am not allowed to go.

BEING CONCERNED FOR SAFETY

After today’s incident, I am concerned about what my future safety in a male facility. I know that many would say that I belong here, simply because I am transgender, and for the last 24 months of being housed within a male facility, I accepted that maybe I belong here, maybe I was never suppose to be in a women’s facility, but than I realize the lack of safety that is here, I have to think about the countless inmates who have killed themselves and the others who have mutilated themselves with razors just so that they could avoid being housed in unsafe-male facilities and alleviate the pain that they feel from being housed incongruently.

Am I radical for believing that no one deserves to be raped and abused, including transgender women? Am I radical for believing that I deserve a second chance; worthy of a chance to again be safe and affirmed in my gender identity that is under attack within the male facilities.

As a woman who is transgender, I have to continue to advocate for my community, because the reality is that we are being eliminated from conversations, eliminated from spaces where we feel safe. I have to tell you the truth of what is going on.

We are not safe in male prisons many of us, have been abused within male facilities, many of us, often go into these relationships with men who only want to be with us for sex, we go to thees relationship and often stay in these relationships, hoping that it will protect us from the harm that we face when we are alone, hoping that it will stop the guys from trying to rape us.

There are countless transgender women, who literally you will never hear from because they have accepted the abuse, accepted the hostile environment, they have accepted the theory that they are not equal to other women and will have to find there own way within the male prison system. This is exactly why I have continue to speak up.

Who better than me to speak about the plights that transgender women face, I have been living my life authentically as a women for several years now within the male prison system, I know and understand just how fucked up things are. However more than anything I am responsible for most of the policy changes that NJDOC has enacted.

The policy changes enacted by NJDOC are not to help transgenders live authentically as themselves; instead the policy is focused on ensure thing that transgenders are interrogated, and viewed as men having penis(s) who are trying to be a woman. This harmful view of transgender women, derived from the pregnancies that occurred at Edna Mahan.

Regardless of someone’s behavioral issues, the reality is that everyone deserves safety, and the NJDOC has numerous numerous ways within the female facilities to house, any inmate (regardless of their gender identity) within the female facilities. For example inmates who are deemed a unusual security threat can be placed on Management Control status (MCU) which is a close custody status that is available and that has been used for decades by the NJDOC to manage and ensure the safety of others.

We should care what happens to transgender women because they are at a particular high rate of being victimized while in the correctional system. According to one study by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, nearly 40 percent of transgender prisoners in state in federal prisons experience sexual victimization, a rate ten times higher than that for prisoners in general. No one deserves to be victimized solely because of their gender identity, I have sadly lived out these statistics, my story is not the only story, so I wonder when will we really rise up to speak about the plights that transgender women are facing within the prison system.

I wonder when will we actually acknowledge what is happening and the harm it causes, real justice is when we repair lives and see the good in everybody.